On a much more positive note than my recent blog post about scandals and open secrets in the orchestral world, Agrigento’s Innovar scheme has provided seed-funding for 12 innovative projects in 2024 (which will run alongside several other new and ongoing projects funded through other lines). Read more below…
It’s been a bad week for orchestras. An old sexual assault scandal at the New York Philharmonic hit the headlines again. But what could have come and gone quickly as a “bad apple” story – one that was not even news – soon escalated into something much bigger, as it became clear that the rot…
Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community, by Kenneth J. Gergen, is a major work of scholarship in social psychology. It has a lot to offer the field of social action through music (SATM), despite saying nothing about it directly. In this essay, I’m going to put the two together. First, a few disclaimers. This will…
Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools was published in 2021 as an open access book (free to download).
This book examines the Network of Music Schools of Medellín, founded to promote peaceful coexistence in Colombia’s second city, once known as the most dangerous city on Earth. The program’s history of multiple reinventions and its continual search for improvement shed valuable light on the past, present, and future of Social Action Through Music.
Rethinking Social Action Through Music has been published in Spanish translation as Replanteando la acción social por la música (also open access, free to download).
Now also available in Portuguese translation here (free download).
Two recent essays (2023):
“Researching social action through music: challenges and possibilities.” Les Dossiers des sciences de l’éducation 47 (2022) – Pratiques musicales collectives à vocation sociale : un état de la recherche.
“Afterword.” In O. Odena, ed., Music and Social Inclusion: International Research and Practice in Complex Settings, 252-60. London: Routledge, 2023.
As of 2023, I am Director of Research at Agrigento, emeritus professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a visiting research fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
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Geoff Baker 